The Spelling Test

It finally happened.  I went from being the cool mom to suddenly being the Wicked Witch of the West.  All because of a spelling test.  Apparently, only mean mommies expect perfection in spelling.

Since Boy Wonder isn't going off to a classroom where he is graded and ranked among his peers, it's been a little challenging to explain the concept of grades.  Other than the fact that he likes getting ice cream when he produces perfect math homework, he doesn't seem to understand the importance of not getting anything wrong.  Hence, it's been a challenge to get him to memorize his spelling words. 

I discovered that Boy Wonder enjoys "guessing" on his spelling tests, but it completely defeats the purpose of spelling if he's not going to learn the words.  As a problem-solving, game-loving person myself, I can understand why he enjoys the "guessing tests", but they are completely wasting our time.  They worked when we were spelling easy words with short vowel sounds, but they don't work anymore. I know he can memorize, because he memorizes his Bible verses every week in 1 or 2 days!  He just has no desire to memorize a list of words.

So I got creative.  I tried to incentivize him by telling him that we can stop the spelling tests as soon as he spells all of the words correctly (like when my teachers said that those who aced the Wednesday tests didn't have to take the Friday test), but he wasn't buying this tactic.  Thus, last week there were tears, heated mother-son conversations, and frustration on both sides.

Then Daddy stepped in.  Daddy explained to Boy Wonder that spelling is important.  He explained that just about every good job requires employees to be able to spell.  And there are expectations that employees will spell correctly.  He also explained that misspelling words in the documents that he drafts for clients could, and probably would, get him fired.  Daddy very cleverly demonstrated to Boy Wonder that we must all spell with perfection if we want to be successful in life. 

Voila! The next morning, Boy Wonder aced the test.  No problems. Not only did he ace the test, but he was able to spell similar words that followed the same phonetic rules.  And when retested later, he still spelled all the words correctly.

Grades don't have the same magical, motivating factor for homeschoolers that they do for many in the classroom setting.  Motivating a homeschooler to learn is different from engaging an entire classroom or creating a competitive atmosphere.  Thankfully, Mr. Wonderful is an amazing motivational speaker.  Plus, he's a daddy (and everyone who could care less about making mom happy always wants to please daddy, right?).  I can never underestimate the power of having Daddy involved in the homeschool process.  It's a secret weapon that most school teachers don't have.  It's the secret weapon that I discovered, all because of a lousy spelling test!